Days of Wonder has expanded its online game presence by launching a beta version of their award winning WWII board game, Memoir ’44.

Currently the beta is open to the public and can be accessed on Days of Wonder’s website at the Memoir ’44 download page.

The online version of the game is nearly identical to the table top version with a few minor differences to deal with the computer managing the rules of the game.

Days of Wonder is experimenting with a new payment system that allows you buy credits to play a certain number of games. These are called Gold Ingots. Beta users receive enough credits to play a couple of dozen games online against live opponents or against the computer.

An average game takes about 12 to 15 turns to complete and lasts about 20 minutes.

The game is enjoyable and the community is small enough that you get to know your opponents over time. It literally is a virtual gaming group, that shows up to play at any hour of the day or night that you do. Days of Wonder feels that online gaming creates demand for their board games in addition to becoming its own revenue stream for the company.

Beautiful graphics create a nice game experience

2 Comments

I’ve been enjoying playing this game in solo mode. I can never play against someone else because I can never devote enough time to play a full game uninterrupted though (not DOW’s fault!). So I would like to see more support for the solo game. It doesn’t track achievments there. I want to see what maps I have won and loss.

I have noticed the games last about 20 minutes. I started playing against live opponents on the smaller maps first to get a feel for the length of time a two player game takes. 11 minutes is the shortest time so far.

I agree with the need for expanded Solo tracking, although right now if you go into your service record you can see how many times you have played against the game AI. It is listed under Johnny or Hermann, depending on which you have chosen.

I have noticed during install that they have folders for most of the expansions including Pacific and the Med.

I’m also looking for the ability to save communications between players. A lot of chat happens in some of my games and there isn’t any current way to recover the discussion threads.